Evaluation of Meshed Reference Planes for High Performance Applications

Abstract

The actual generations of integrated circuits are characterized, inter alia, by very high frequencies or very high speeds. The dramatic evolution ofthe semiconductor's technology establishes a greater “pressure” to the design and the manufacturing of the passive interconnection structure from PCB/MCM electronic modules. In these conditions the reference planes (power and ground planes) have a more and more important contribution. The paper intents to present the effect of different configuration reference planes on the characteristics of the high speed/high frequency interconnection lines. The first part deals with modeling and simulation of usual practical interconnection geometries. A computer modeling of meshed structures was realized and Spice models for a good compatibility with circuit simulators were obtained. S-, Y-, Z- parameters and radiation patterns were calculated, too. The second part contains measurements made by a vector network analyzer as regards to different practical configurations manufactured at Technical University of Budapest.